The present invention relates to a printing instruction program, an image forming apparatus and a method for displaying a preview, and specifically relates to a printing instruction program, an image forming apparatus and a method for displaying a preview, in each of which an operation for displaying a preview of an image to be printed on a printing medium is controlled.
In recent years, various kinds of printing apparatuses, such as printers, MFP (Multi-Functional Peripherals), etc., (hereinafter, referred to as an image forming apparatus as a general term for each of them) have been increasingly proliferated in the market concerned. When the image forming apparatus is employed as a network printer, a document is created by executing an application program installed in a computer terminal device coupled to the concerned network at first, and then, the data representing the above-created document is converted to print data in conformity with the Page Description Language by employing software (printer driver) for controlling the image forming apparatus, so as to transmit the print data to the image forming apparatus. Receiving the print data sent from the computer terminal device, the image forming apparatus parses the print data so as to create an intermediate data, and then, converts the intermediate data to image data in conformity with the bitmap format in order to output the image onto a paper sheet medium based on the bitmap image data.
In such a case that the printing instruction is issued from the computer terminal device as abovementioned, the print product is wasted in vain unless the print product outputted by the image forming apparatus is in conformity with the user's desired form, and in this case, the user should operate the computer terminal device again to issue a revised printing instruction to the image forming apparatus concerned. Accordingly, in order to prevent the image forming apparatus from generating such the wasted print products and to improve the convenience aspect and usability of the user, a conventional system is so constituted that the printer driver displays a print preview on the computer terminal device before the printing instruction is transmitted to the image forming apparatus, so as to make it possible for the user to confirm in advance the output status of the final image to be outputted onto the print product concerned.
With respect to the operation for displaying the preview abovementioned, for instance, with respect to an image processing apparatus that creates a print preview of a document including an image and characters, Tokkai 2007-193701 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication) sets forth such a configuration that comprises: a character logical information acquiring section to acquire character logical information, which has been established in advance and is to be employed at the time of printing operation; a first preview image creating section to vary the magnification factor of the original image size of the image included in the abovementioned document, corresponding to the size of the depicting area for the print preview, so as to generate the preview of the image concerned; a second preview image creating section to create character bitmap data having a resolution equal to or greater than the printing resolution, from the characters included in the document, by employing the character logical information to be employed at the time of printing operation, and then, to vary the magnification factor of the original character size of the characters included in the abovementioned document, corresponding to the size of the depicting area for the print preview, so as to generate the preview of the characters concerned; and a display section to create a print preview screen by combining the image print preview created by the first preview image creating section with the character print preview created by the second preview image creating section, so as to display the print preview image thereon.
As abovementioned, by displaying the print preview before instructing the printing operation concerned, it becomes possible for the user to confirm the output status of the print product on the screen of the computer terminal device. In addition to the above, if it were possible for the user to confirm the page layout while changing the display magnification factor thereof, and/or to confirm a state of a specific small area in detail (for instance, an partial area where characters and an image overlap with each other), it would be very convenient for the user concerned.
According to the conventional printer driver, however, since the display magnification factor can be varied by operating menu buttons, a keyboard and/or a mouse, there has been such a problem that the operating procedure for changing the display magnification factor has been very complicated and cumbersome, and accordingly, it has been impossible for the user to easily change the display magnification factor.
Further, since the conventional printer driver can display a current display magnification factor only, once the display magnification factor has been changed, it becomes difficult to resume the original display magnification factor. Specifically, in regard to the print preview, since it is convenient for the user to view the print preview, which is displayed in such a manner that one page of the document is displayed within a display area by employing such a magnification factor that makes one page of the document fit to all over the display area (fit page display mode, so to speak), the print preview is displayed in the fit page display mode at the initial state. However, since the magnification factor to be employed for the fit page display mode is tend to became a certain broken-numeral, it would be difficult to resume the fit page display mode after the display magnification factor has been once changed, and there has arisen such another problem that the usability of the image forming apparatus concerned has been deteriorated.